Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to highlight the state of transport infrastructure in my electorate of Mitchell in north-west and south-west Sydney one final time in the dying days of the New South Wales Labor government. It is the truth that my electorate has the highest rate of car ownership per household of any electorate in the country and there is good reason for that. Since 1999 the state Labor government promised a rail line for north-western Sydney and cancelled it for over 10 years. Ten subsequent announcements—‘Build the rail line’; ‘Cancel the rail line’; ‘Build the rail line’; ‘Cancel the rail line’—have been made since 1999. The long-suffering commuters of Sydney and the north-western suburbs have a lot to hold this Labor government to account for.

I note the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has come into the chamber. It is great that he has, because the Rudd government considered the north-west rail line and did not proceed with it, for political purposes. I want to note that the federal government funded a study, for $100 million, into a rail line that just happened to go through the minister for infrastructure’s electorate, which already had a heavy rail line and light rail and is only 20 minutes from our urban areas. The outer suburbs of our major city, south-west and north-west Sydney, desperately need better transport infrastructure. This federal Labor government has sought, in the dying days of a state government, to bind that government not to build transport infrastructure based on the needs of commuters but to build it based on the government’s political interests. In five days, the people of New South Wales will hold federal Labor to account for this. (Time expired)